DIY check-outs, drones, self-driving cars, and e-government all are signs of the coming auto-industrial age. Will this end in mass unemployment or will new kinds of work emerge? Will 3D print production, desktop workshops and mass customization make up for lost blue-collar jobs? What will happen to health and education in the auto-industrial age? Will machines replace teachers and doctors? What might the economic and social future dominated by self-employment and a large DIY industry look like? Peter Murphy's lively, provocative book addresses these questions head-on.

Introduction: The rise of Auto-Industrialism

Chapter One: Work

Chapter Two: Industry

Chapter Three: Public Goods

Conclusion: The Age of DIY Capitalism

Peter Murphy has done it again. This time he has put his razor-sharp, analytic and synoptic mind to work on our global challenges: what kind of social order do we have when all forms of routine production are automated? In clear, humorous and biting prose he challenges us to think afresh about how we live and work today and what we might hope for tomorrow. The new era of ‘creative capitalism’ is as dynamic, volatile and disruptive as the labour societies of industrial and post-industrial capitalisms. Auto-Industrialism shows us that we have some work to do but perhaps not as we imagined but also more than we bargained for.

Trevor Hogan

La Trobe University

Peter Murphy’s lively and insightful book is fundamentally optimistic about what is nonetheless an alarming trend...An excellent contribution to a debate that will be vital in ensuring that we profit from auto-industrialisation rather than sink under the weight of post-industrial parasites.

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